{"id":352062,"date":"2025-12-17T23:08:04","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T23:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/352062\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T23:08:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T23:08:04","slug":"netflix-vs-paramount-could-help-warner-bros-movies-like-sinners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/352062\/","title":{"rendered":"Netflix vs Paramount Could Help Warner Bros Movies Like \u2018Sinners\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAwards<\/a> voters can choose a top winner for many reasons beyond the work itself \u2014 social justice (Moonlight), religious mea culpa (Spotlight), military guilt (The Hurt Locker), feeling bad for Ben Affleck (Argo).<\/p>\n

\n\tBut what has taken shape in the past two weeks, as Netflix<\/a> and Paramount<\/a> fight to take control of Warner Bros<\/a>, could check a much rarer box on list: rewarding the company about to get devoured.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Wednesday the latest round in that bout unfolded, as Warner Bros. Discovery formally rejected<\/a> the Paramount offer of $30 a share, likely leading to the David Ellison company unleashing another, higher-priced haymaker north of that $108 billion figure as he tries to pry it from Netflix. But all of that drama just benefits the contenders who have movies at WB.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne Battle after Another<\/a> was a\u00a0pretty\u00a0prohibitive frontrunner even before this sale was announced, topping most Oscar prognosticator lists thanks to Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s wry story of a revolutionary past his prime (and nabbing every conceivable nomination at the Golden Globes<\/a> including picture, director, screenplay and five acting noms). Ryan Coogler<\/a>\u2019s Sinners<\/a> hasn\u2019t been far behind with pundits (or with Globes, with picture, director, screenplay\u00a0and an acting nomination for Michael B. Jordan) as industry people are very drawn to the metaphorized vampire story in the Jim Crow South.<\/p>\n

\n\tNow those two choices become even greater heavyweights.<\/p>\n

\n\tGiven the vibe around town, which runs roughly along the lines of, \u201cCan you believe what Netflix could do to the\u00a0house that Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack built?\u201d a lot of voters are now looking at those pieces through new eyes. More than just powerful works of cinema, the movies are avatars for everything good and right about to go away. What card-carrying Hollywood pro can resist that argument? Warners isn\u2019t just getting gobbled up by any larger company \u2014 it\u2019s being consumed by a company that to date hasn\u2019t believed in theatrical releases.<\/p>\n

\n\tEven if the company went to Paramount, the feeling among many voters goes, the studio is still the victim of a tech-minded consolidation, given the source of Ellison\u2019s family money. \u00a0And with the Academy Awards now going full streaming thanks to its YouTube deal<\/a>, Silicon Valley ambivalence is running high in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\n\tHistorically, few studios in the modern era have had better years than Warners itself back at the 2004 Oscars<\/a> ceremony, when it notched 13 wins thanks mostly to Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and slightly to Mystic River. This year the Sinners-Battle dynamic duo could approach that number.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s a strange idea, casting a vote based on a corporate narrative. But welcome to the Oscars in the M&A age: alongside great craftsmanship and stellar storytelling sits the virtue of being targeted by a tech giant. Casts can get punished because of a miscreant director; talented people get shunned because an executive eschewed theaters. This is a reverse case: love by association.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 2026 Oscars would not be the first instance of sales-target sympathy. Eight years ago a similar Big Bad Wolf merger narrative unfolded in Hollywood in the thick of award season when Disney announced it was buying Fox. That year Guillermo del Toro\u2019s\u00a0The Shape of Water,\u00a0from then-Fox\u00a0Searchlight, took home the top prizes of best picture and best director, in what many critics call one of the weaker winners in modern memory. But the sizable number of voters who felt\u00a0Searchlight would get scuttled by Disney overlooked its flaws and marked the selection of the studio about to be gobbled up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis year del Toro is on the other side of the stick, and his Frankenstein, which has been garnering some momentum<\/a>, may have just been slowed in its tracks. If Netflix couldn\u2019t win best picture before all this, it\u2019s hard to see as snapping up a Hollywood icon will reverse the trend. (Also tough news for Train Dreams, A House of Dynamite, Jay Kelly and Nouvelle Vague.)<\/p>\n

\n\tBy the way, if anyone thought Shape of Water groundswell eight years ago was sticking it to Disney, they might want to think again; Bob Iger sat behind the Searchlight team the entire Oscar ceremony and gave them the thumbs up-with every award. I\u2019m not sure David Ellison or Ted Sarandos would be doing the same behind Michael de Luca and Pamela Abdy, but they might be quietly cheering just the same.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf the WB sympathy-vote does come into play, it could help hand Oscars to some very overdue people. Coogler doesn\u2019t have a statuette on his mantel despite his unbroken streak of critical and crowd favorites in Fruitvale Station, Creed and the Black Panther movies. And Paul Thomas Anderson, while being nominated for eleven Oscars across six movies, has somehow never won one either.<\/p>\n

\n\tIronically, the Oscar love for Warners might make Netflix think twice about any quiet plans to go streaming-first (a plan execs continue to say<\/a> they will not follow). At the very least you could imagine the winners taking advantage of the moment, a Coogler or PTA acceptance address imploring Sarandos to keep it theatrical or Ellison to put away the layoff scalpel. Sometimes when you fear your studio is about to get trainrolled, all you can do\u00a0is\u00a0close your eyes, brace for the worst and give a damn good Oscar speech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Awards voters can choose a top winner for many reasons beyond the work itself \u2014 social justice (Moonlight),…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3042,49,48,75,105274,1316,15463,18744,9489,58697,27690,4432],"class_list":{"0":"post-352062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-awards","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-golden-globes","13":"tag-netflix","14":"tag-one-battle-after-another","15":"tag-oscars","16":"tag-paramount","17":"tag-ryan-coogler","18":"tag-sinners","19":"tag-warner-bros"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}